“Chance, are you ready? The ball is in thirty minutes!” I looked over at the door and sighed.

“Nearly ready, father.” In truth, I hadn’t even started getting ready. I begrudgingly changed into the suit which had been set out by a servant, and met my father in the hall.

“You look so grown up.”

“I am grown up, I’m twenty-one.”

“If you are, act like it.”

At the ball, I had to dance with every single lady at least once. After six of them tripped, ten of them got a little too touchy, and seventeen of them stepped on my feet, I managed to escape to a balcony outside. I breathed in the cool evening air and then went back in. Immediately, a beautiful woman caught my eye. I weaved through the crowd and made it to her.

“Would you like to dance?” I asked.

She sighed. “Sure, I guess.” 

We started dancing, and I was surprised that she looked…bored.

“You’re beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks, but I’m not interested. I’m just here to get away from my stepmother and stepsisters.”

I thought about how my father was bugging me about getting married. “How bad do you want to get away from them?”

“They’re the worst. They make me do everything because they’re jealous of me.”

“I have a plan. I’m Chance, by the way.”

“I’m Cinderella. What’s your plan?”

“My father says I need to find a wife tonight, otherwise…I don’t know what will happen. But, not gonna lie, I’m not really interested in getting a wife.” We waltzed away from other people. “What if we get married, but not really. Just pretend. It would get you away from your stepfamily, and it would get my father off my case.”

“But I want to get my things from my room, and if my stepmother gets home before I do, she’ll go crazy.”

I thought for a moment, then had an idea. “You go home tonight. Then, tomorrow, I’ll come get you. Where did you get your outfit?”

“I made the dress, and the shoes were my mother’s.”

“What time do you need to leave?”

She looked at the clock. “In about ten minutes, at midnight.”

“When you leave, give me one of your shoes and I’ll use that as an excuse to come find you. Seems crazy, but stranger things have happened in the Charming family. I’ll go around to every house and let the girls try on the shoe.”

“Are you seriously guessing that no one else wears the same shoe size I do?”

“I’ll fake it, pretend the shoe can’t fit. I’m a good actor. I’ve pretended to like my father for twenty-one years.” We danced for a few more minutes, then the clock struck twelve.

“Make a big show that you have to leave,” I whispered.

“Oh no, it’s midnight!” she cried. She pulled away from me and ran out the main door. I followed, thinking she’d forgotten to leave a shoe. As she ran away, she stumbled and then kept running, leaving a shoe behind. I picked up the glass shoe.

“Wait, you forgot this!” I called. Without answering, she disappeared into the night. I smiled softly, knowing things were going according to plan.

The next day, I went around to every house, and at every house asked if there was anyone else. Finally, I came to a house where it didn’t fit anyone, so I asked if there was anyone else. They said no, but I heard muffled yelling.

“Go silence that fool!” the mother screamed. One of her daughters ran upstairs and returned moments later.

“The door is open, and the room empty.” Suddenly, Cinderella walked in with a satchel.

“Hello, Stepmother,” she said.

“I told you to stay up there!”

“Nope, I’m taking my stuff and leaving. I danced with Chance last night.”

My advisor sniffed in disdain. “If so, then the glass slipper would fit you.”

She walked over to me in defiance and slipped her foot into the shoe. A perfect fit.

“If the shoe fits,” she said, pulling the other shoe out of her satchel, “wear it.”

-----

“Highnesses, are you ready for the ceremony?” I jolted awake and looked across the room where Cinderella lay in her bed. She was sitting up, as well. We quickly jumped up and moved the beds next to each other, moving the sheets so it looked like one bed. Still pretty obvious, but it had been fooling them for years. Today, we were celebrating the birth of our daughter. Not really, though. 

Cinderella had gone to a nearby orphanage in disguise a few weeks ago to adopt a newborn. She’d been faking pregnancy for months, and we’d paid a doctor to say she was pregnant. Then, we pretended that Cinderella had the baby, and we named her Hope. After all, we’d given her hope at a better life, much like we’d given each other hope that night at the ball. We would never tell her we weren’t actually married, because children talk. A lot. Maybe when she was our age, we’d tell her the real story of Cinderella and Prince Charming, not the Disney version.